PARIS DUMPS JUGS FOR CANS IN TOP BLOMO

CLICK NAVEL FOR LINK TO QWOFF AND LATEST TINNED WINE YARN ... WHOSE HEAD IS THAT ON MY GIRLFRIEND'S BODY? WHAT HAPPENED TO THE CHIN? ... THE TINS ARE BIGGER THAN HER HEAD! ... AND WHAT'S THE WHITE STICK? ... CONDUCTOR'S BATON? STRAW/ BIG GAY JAY?

Tinned Wine Guns For Kiddylikker Gang
Goonbag Juice Gets Blonde In Tin
by PHILIP WHITE - A version of this was published in The Advertiser in Oct 2005

Oops. I just popped my first tin of Barokes' "Premium Australian Bubbly Wine Bin 242 chardonnay semillon" (sic) and it squirted all over my computer. Damn. Too much information?

I first thought of Danny De Vito in The Tin Men. I don't wanna be before! I wanna be after! Then Repo Man, where Harry Dean Stanton's sidekicks are hungry and thirsty. They saunter into a supermarket and get cans. Some are labelled "food", and some "drink". All they needed to know.

Or the heroic early eighties attempt of Robert O'Callaghan (Rockford) and Tony Parkinson (Pennys Hill) to save the Angle Vale winery by flogging booze in little cardboard tetra bricks, like those the kids suck fruit juice from. No bullshit. I struck a new shirt new strides new shoes and new haircut O'Callaghan at the Sydney airport that year and was miffed that his leather briefcase looked more important than mine. He flopped it on the bar, slapped it, told me it contained the future of the Australian wine industry, and clicked it open. There, packed tightly to the gunnels in neat stacks, seeming to swell out and up as if they were growing in a movie, weren't bundles of $10,000 bills. Nope. They were Tetra Packs of wine, with a little flexi-straw straw glued on their side.

The sort of wine I was weaned on. Like not.

Not that this new tin goonjuice is aimed at kids. The guff says it's for "the can generation", which you suddenly enter when you're eighteen, and just as suddenly leave when you're 39. Like not. Look at the empties on any serial farmboy's ute floor, and check it. Some old croaks are perishing goannas, and the truck's cluttered with kiddylikker cans. Sweet infidelity.

Such ideas float there, just below the surface. Somebody will always try it again. Like these geniuses at Barokes, who own the trademark RTDWTM, which means "ready to drink wine".

Really.

No cork problems with a tin, see, and they won't smash if you drop 'em in the jacuzzi. The wine is dull and broad and fizzy. 65 points.

Now I get it. For safety near electrical stuff, you pop the non-fizzing Barokes Premium Australian Wine Bin 241 chardonnay semillon. Peter Scudamore-Smith, the noted Queensland Master of Wine, has put a thoughtful message on the tin. "The taste delivers rich, nutty chardonnay flavours and semillon fruitiness", he writes. "Nose of honey from classy wines with a distinctive peach aroma" (sic).

Not my kind of nuts, honey, or peach, baby. Not my kind of classy. Maybe I miss the bling. Dull and broad. Sweet. 66 points.

Move into the men's tins. The Premium Australian Bubbly Wine Bin 171 cabernet shiraz merlot. Mr. Scudamore-Smith's notes say this one's got "mouth sweetness". Mouth sweetness. It smells like nose sweetness to me, but there you are. Rich, like fruit mince. Ahhh. There's the mouth sweetness. Just before that bitter little finish. Tannin, you see. I opened this one using the lever keyring/bottle opener thing they sent, so I wouldn't do my nail polish on the ring pull, and it didn't squirt anywhere. 68 points.

Now, the serious one: Barokes Premium Australian Wine Bin 121 cabernet shiraz merlot. "The cabernet provides the finish" advises Mr. Scudamore-Smith. "Good rich shiraz mouthfeel. Lots of merlot red and crimson colours. Ripe aromas on the nose". It's not really on the nose, but it's certainly red. And it does finish. 63 points. Maybe I did it wrong, using a glass. But then I am over 39 years of age. According to the I'm out of the can generation.

This took Barokes nine years to get up. "You can't just walk up to a tank and put wine in a can", says the press release. "Barokes have reverse engineered the wine tasting experience from colour, nose, taste to taste, colour, nose...Barokes wine in a can is a premium quality/healthy/safe/patented product based on a 70 year old European formula...a living product, not cask wine."

So there you go. Reverse engineered wine in a can. Living. With bin numbers, just like Grange. $4.59 for 250 ml.. The Repo Men would love it, but for all that detail.